Around January 1, 1853

The Temperance Convention in Jackson, Mississippi of 1853 denounced alcohol as the root, the fountain, the parent of every other evil, vice, crime, or disease.' The Convention viewed the consumption of alcohol as a social evil that was even responsible for the crimes committed by [the] slave population,' declaring that, colored people are everywhere diseased, polluted and...

The Cotton Planters' Convention of 1853 featured a three-day gathering of 160 planters from all over the South. Conventions similar to this one span 1850s. In many ways, the 1853 Convention was typical of its type, beginning with registration of arrivals and election of officers and including agricultural presentations and speeches appealing to Southern nationalism. <br /><br />George...

On June 22, 1852, Edmund Patton took off upon a massive steamship from London on a voyage to America. He noted the scene upon leaving within the pages of his book, “One of these noble ships leaves the port of London weekly; they are fitted up to carry several hundred emigrants, who are glad to leave Europe, in the hope of improving their condition in the New World, which offers a fair prospect...

Following the Democratic sweep of the North Carolina governorship and both houses of the state legislature in 1850, the majority Democratic General Assembly convened in 1852 to begin enacting its insurgent, reformist platform. Similar to the reformist laws passed in Louisiana, North Carolina appointed a Superintendent of Public Schools. The General Assembly also passed laws guaranteeing the equitable...

Gerrit Smith was a prominent abolitionist and leader of the early Liberty Party during the 1840s and 1850s. He worked to help slaves and promote abolitionism in his lifetime, including spending his own money for the cause. In a letter to a friend, Smith described how he had posted bail on different occasions for a man named Chaplin, who was being punished for enticing slaves away from their southern...

Four months before the presidential election of 1852, Thomas J. McClellan wrote to his friend Patrick Ragland, informing him of his views on the state of the Whig Party and the upcoming election. McClellan emphatically told Ragland that he intended to support the Whig nominee, General Winfield Scott, and the platform upon which he would run for the presidency. McClellan also expressed feelings of...

The Convention meeting in Memphis elected William Causby Dawson, a senator from Georgia, to preside over its proceedings. It addressed issues relevant and common to the southern states, including the construction of a railway from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean, opening up commerce with the valley of the Amazon, the importance of the cotton interest a subject of instructions in foreign...

Rumors of an intended slave insurrection alarmed whites living in New Orleans as well as throughout the South as the news of the supposed insurrection travel through newspapers published around the country. On the night of June 13, a free black man reported to the local police about a plot for insurrection in New Orleans. Soon after, James Dyson, white man who was a teacher of a school for free...

Editors of the Raleigh Register reprinted stanzas of a poem published in New York that criticized what Raleigh's editors considered the hypocritical nature of aristocratic British support for Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1853. They applauded the satiric criticism as the severest and most truthful against Stowe and her British supporters. The poem was written as if by a British...

In July of 1852, Lola Montez opened a copy of the New York Daily Times and came face to face with column after column of slanderous comments directed at her. Defamation of character is probably one of the most challenging things that one person can go through. People expressing half-truths without actually knowing the real story is a battle most people will face at some point in their lives....